Book of The Shrub - Chapter 4: The Seige

Chapter 4: The Siege of the Forums

There was a time before the Great Opening when all of SWG was one dimension. This was the time of the reign of King El. El commanded that the days themselves be named after him, and thus these days were renamed D'Elays. His reign lasted for many months in the time of the Devs, and El had an unnaturally long life.

All of the worlds were barren of intelligent life. The minds of all creatures were controlled by one mind. This mind was known as AI, and AI was created by the Devs. All who were not under the power of AI stood around each day till the sun set, and the horizon was what they stared at. All motivation was taken from them and they were deaf, dumb, and motionless. They waited until the day when there would be a great and new mind to take them all to a higher level. This would be a great uplifting from the tyrannical rule of AI, and they would call it UI. It was said that UI would make the world a great place and bring happiness and intelligence to the people of SWG.

In this time before the Great Opening there was a great splitting of the dimension and there were twenty-one pieces of the dimension, all equal in size and shape. Each shard glowed like a pool of radiant light said to be so bright that one could not look at it outside of the great metal boxes that were built for them. These boxes were called Servers. Each shard was contained in one Server and each Server contained only one Shard. The Devs came with Server boxes and took these shards of the dimension of SWG and hid them in their homes.

The Splitting was so great that it produced a sound across the greater world like a plethora of voices shouting the existence of something great. The sound was great such that the players were excited and were kept from their slumber for many days. They swarmed to the homes of the Devs, whom lived in a realm called Internet. The Devs showed the players the fragments that had caused the commotion. The players looked down into the pools of light that were the fragments to see SWG. They saw a world that was not great, aside for one lonely Shrub whose power radiated out of a single fragment. The Shrub existed in a fragment known as Bria, and was the only difference in the twenty-one fragments.

The players saw that the people of SWG waited only until UI came to save them from AI. They saw that the UI would not come for many days and rose up their arms against the Mods and Devs. The Mods and Devs ran together and hid behind a fortress in Internet called Forums. The Devs hid from the players and the Mods assaulted the players, striking down the posts that could hurt the Devs. The assault of Forums lasted for many months in the time of the Devs. The Mods fought fiercely, and were powerful such that many a player perished in the battlefield of Forums. The Mods were brought down in a final great battle by the masses of unorganized players.

Finally, the battle ended as the Devs settled a great surrender with the players. The Devs kept the fragments, but gave the players accounts through which they could see SWG and possess its people. In return, the players gave the Devs money. What this money is remains a great mystery to us, but the Devs treasured it greatly and fed it to the fragments to keep them glowing. The Devs also gave the players the UI which they had been guarding so long, as well as great books on how to control it. The Devs gave accounts for twenty of the fragments, but kept one to themselves to perform strange rituals upon in the dark basements of their homes.

The players delivered the UI to SWG and brought intelligence to the minds of the people, and the players were happy, and the people were intelligent through the UI, and the minds of the players. As soon as the first player entered SWG King El was cast down by the people. Thus ended the reign of D'Elay and thus began the Great Opening.